Political Virgin

Today I went to something political.

     Instead of Journalism and Public Relations classes, my class attended a mayoral forum here at school for the civic election coming up on October 27. It was my first time at anything political, let alone a full-out forum, so it was new experiences all over the place. The sights, the smells, ah my.

     The forum was driven by questions posed to each candidate, mostly from students. The answers led to interesting discussion, and at some points, somewhat heated debate. Many of the issues we had discussed earlier in class came up, so it was good to see topics I recognized. This also satisfied my curiosity about how the candidates would respond to the issues, and proved Vogelsang right that many times, their response was nothing concrete at all. As mentioned in class, Katz has been reluctant to share some specifics about his plan if he’s re-elected, but to me there were several instances where each candidate could have been more forthcoming and precise with their responses. There were a few times when students sat down, and I got the feeling they still didn’t have their question completely resolved.

     In spite of this, I believe both candidates were able to present themselves as wanting to advocate for the poor, strengthen communities, and reduce crime, although many times they had very different ways of going about it. For example, Katz disagreed with Wasylycia-Leis’ plan to provide work for ex-criminals as a form of rehabilitation, saying what sounded more like he’d basically like to provide jobs for everyone who needs and earns them. Both candidates want to strengthen communities, but to me it’s that Wasylycia-Leis has a much more grassroots, complete plan that centers on involvement and cooperation (between businesses, community centres, police, and families), while Katz feels the need is just for more cops and policing.

     Also, both Katz and Wasylycia-Leis differ on their plans regarding making Winnipeg more sustainable and green. Both want more public transit, but in different forms. Katz has talked for a long time about a light rail transit system, while Wasylycia-Leis thinks rapid bus transit will solve the problem.

     What really struck me were the candidates’ answers to Allison’s question regarding Winnipeg’s failure to properly recycle glass. Both had commented earlier on the fact that Winnipeg is behind other Canadian cities in sustainability, with low transit ridership and no composting cited as examples, and had said they wanted to improve this. But when faced with the glass question, only Katz was able to describe plans in motion or efforts being made to recycle glass and encourage more recycling, while all I got out of Wasylycia-Leis’ reply is that “recycling is good.” The Winnipeg Free Press’ coverage of the event agreed, saying that she ran out of time before she was able to provide any real answer to the question. Unfortunately for Wasylycia-Leis, this seemed to happen more than once. Richard Cloutier, the moderator from CJOB radio, kept things moving at a steady pace, but he seemed to need to cut her short much more often than Katz.

     Although the two-hour length of this meeting daunted me, to my surprise it didn’t feel like a lifetime. Would I go again? Only for double credit like this!